The Girl with the Paisley Rain Boots

I didn't conscientiously set out to become the girl with the Paisley Rain Boots. Yet somehow, thanks to a self-portait class where in the beginning I only had enough confidence to take pictures of my feet, a rainy Spring and colorful rain boots, that is what I have become. I got so many compliments of those boots that I decided to use them as a springboard for a blog. A blog that could be as diverse as I am, where I could photograph and write about anything and everything.

This past week in the blogging class that I am taking, Susannah Conway's Blogging from the Heart, we talked about branding and how it related to us and our blogs. I have to be honest, I have never given  branding and how it related to me a single thought, but as we delved in the topic, what she had to say made a lot of sense.

I guess I have not thought about branding because I am not selling anything and don't have any current plans to sell anything, but who's to say that might not change in the future. 

The definition of brand:  Brand is the "name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's product distinct from those of other sellers"^[1] Initially, Branding was adopted to differentiate one person's cattle from another's by means of a distinctive symbol burned into the animal's skin with a hot iron stamp, and was subsequently used in business, marketing and advertising. A modern example of a brand is Coca Cola which belongs to the Coca-Cola Company.

Susannah made some very good points about branding your blog and your on-line presence as a whole:

• If there is something that recognizable about you, use it across all your social media platforms.
• Use the same photo of yourself across all your social media platforms. I know that there was at  least three or four different profile pictures of me out there, and only my Facebook one was current. I fixed that this week.
• Think about your color scheme, if you have one that distinguishes you, use it in all social media. For me it would be blues and greens. 
• Be consistent with your bio that you write on your blog and share shorter versions of that in the rest of your social media. 

So these Paisley Rain Boots have become my recognizable identity. I know this is true because of a comment I got on my blog recently from the teacher of one of the classes I was taking, she is not a close and personal on-line friend. She said "And those rain boots are so YOU! I would recognized them anywhere as yours. I hope I don't ever meet someone else with them, or I will have to tell them to return your boots to you".

What people have come to expect when they see those rain boots are some decent photos and a story written from the heart.

Now if only I could get Bogs, the makers of my boots, to recognize me :) I would love to be a rain boot tester for them.